Samsara
by Kaesteranya
Summary: My set of drabbles and flash fiction pieces for Rokudo Mukuro & Sawada Tsuyanoshi, some of which were inspired by concepts found in the doujinshi game ALTOR. Some are porny, some are angsty, some just are.
1. History that threatens to repeat itself

**A history that threatens to repeat itself.**

_Written for the word prompt "déjà vu" over at the KHR Fic Meme, featuring a concept kinda borrowed from the Altor doujinshi game. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 8, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

_

* * *

  
_

Rokudo Mukuro has to constantly remind himself that this weak, scrawny thing is not the boy of his memories, obscured by the fog of centuries and drowned in the blood and tears of thousands, including his own. Giotto was his servant-master, his only, the one person he ever allowed himself to love. He told himself, after having that boy (for Giotto was always a boy to him, back then in as much as the present) die on his watch, that there will be no other. After his ninth reincarnation (after which he also stopped counting), he believed that he had tasted and seen all the brutal/beautiful colors of the world throughout time, and, indeed, there really _would_ be no other. No one else to call him by name, in that exact tone. No other that he would allow himself to serve, to want.

But the skin is like parchment; the muscles, like springs. The body is dumb, falling constantly into rhythms and repetition to comfort itself, and the soul resonants from just one touch from the similar, the familiar. Mukuro's mind, then, is left to rail at how his fingers, unconsciously seek out the braille of Giotto on Sawada Tsuyanoshi, how his lips already knew how the boy tasted, even before they kissed. He looks into Tsuna's eyes and he sees tragedy, broken promises he never made, a death Tsuna did not have. He see his downfall, but his past and present continue to layer hatred with longing until he cannot distinguish the need to break Tsuna across his knee from his old and oft-denied desire for forgiveness and redemption.

_Never again_, Mukuro tells himself, at every waking moment and in every nightmare/dream. Yet he continues to search for Giotto in the turn of Tsuna's head, in autumn-colored eyes and the curves of a naked body and small, tentative smiles.


	2. Conversations with dead people

**Conversations with dead people**

_A possible look at the Tenth's very last moment, and why his Mist Guardian even bothered to go for Byakuran himself when he could have easily walked away from it all. Spoilers for revelations in Chapters 220 onwards. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 31, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

He remembered dying very distinctly – he could, in fact, recall with vivid detail the way it had felt for each one of those bullets to rip through his body, plugging holes through his skin, destroying whatever it touched in his chest be it his heart, his lungs, his liver. It had not been glorious, but he had not cried – he couldn't, not while he knew what was at stake, and that even after he drew his last breath all would be well.

Closing his eyes in a bloody hallway and opening them and finding himself in a field of tall grass and wild flowers, then, was not exactly what he expected. Tsuna looked down, seeing no wounds in his body, seeing clothes that fit him but definitely weren't his own. He stood up, feeling none of the weakness that he had had in his limbs just moments back, when he lay bleeding all over the floor of the Vongola Mansion. The wind in the place was sweet, cooling his face, kissing the surface of the lake laid out in front of him.

"You're a fool, Vongola."

Rokudo Mukuro was standing behind him, dressed down in the same white and black that he was wearing, glaring at him with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Tsuna chuckled, and turned back towards the lake.

"It'll be all right, Mukuro-san. You don't need to worry."

"I am not worrying, and nothing can change the fact that you've gone off and died for nothing."

Tsuna wisely decides not to comment. He looks up, following the paths of the clouds in the sky far above his head. "Are you the only thing keeping me here?"

"Even the dead are allowed to dream before they pass on." Footsteps behind him in the grass. Two heartbeats, and Mukuro is pulling him up by the arm, turning him around, forcing him to look straight into his mismatched eyes. Tsuna cannot, in all the years that he had lived, remember ever hearing Mukuro talk the way he was at that moment, with an anger that wasn't quite anger, and an unexplainable sorrow.

"I didn't accept your ring in order to watch you go off and kill yourself."

"Then help everyone else fix this."

And Tsuna smiled, because it was the only thing he had left to give. They stared at each other for a moment more. Mukuro released his arm.

"…I am not going to help them, Vongola."

"That's all right. That you stayed while I was still alive is enough for me."

They did not say anything else, not even when Tsuna started to fade away; Mukuro, in fact, stood perfectly still and silent, even as the younger man whispered a goodbye just before he disappeared. The illusionist lingered in the garden between life and death a moment longer before stepping out, returning to his own body. Another minute of silence, and then he reached out, touching upon the mind of Chrome Dukuro, the girl grown into a fine young woman who would, without question, follow him anywhere.

_Come to me, my dear Chrome. There are things that I need you to do._


	3. Sharing pains, not joys

**Sharing pains and not joys**

…_I call this my attempt to try and do 6927 pseudo-fluff while sticking with my understanding of Mukuro's character. I hope I didn't fail too badly. _ The title, by the way, is taken from the 31 Days theme for July 27, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

Rokudo Mukuro pulled his trident out of his last kill for the day once the body stopped twitching and breathing – he had, over the years, learned to skewer his enemies and wait it out with them impaled at the end of his weapon if he could afford it, just to make sure that they _stayed _dead. There was also the small amount of pleasure he could derive from watching his target writhe and flop about in its last moment, although Mukuro was careful not to mention that bit too much to his family members. Most of them were almost always upset with him and his "talk".

Mukuro took one last look at the sea of bodies all around him before turning away, slipping into a corridor already filled with men from the Vongola. He brushed past the Rain Guardian as he chatted with some of his subordinates, past the Sun Guardian and his boisterous voice, past the sleepy-eyed Thunder Guardian and his bazooka, past the Cloud Guardian perched on another windowsill, and into another hallway, where there was no one but the Storm Guardian and the Vongola Tenth himself. Theirs was, Mukuro decided with a single glance, a most undignified position.

"I did not know that a boss of your stature would allow himself to be coddled by one of his subordinates."

"Mukuro! Don't you _dare _disrespect the Tenth!"

The first thing Gokudera Hayato naturally did was flare up with righteous indignation at Mukuro's words, and promptly prove Mukuro's point by not moving from where he was squatting on the floor beside his boss, holding the latter's hand. The Mist Guardian eyed the entwined hands with visible disgust before focusing his attentions, once more, on Sawada Tsuyanoshi. The young man looked pathetically small and broken at that moment, slumped against the wall with his arms over his knees. His gauntlets were almost completely stained in the blood of hundreds.

"You are wasting time here, Vongola. Do you not have things that need to get done?"

"Ah… of course, Mukuro-san. Thank you for reminding me." Tsuna rose to his feet, holding on to Gokudera for support; the younger man brushed the dust off of his pants, and squared his gaze up to offer Mukuro a thankful look and a shaky smile. His skin was pale, much paler than it ought to have been. Mukuro sniffed and turned away.

"I'll be waiting downstairs. Hurry up."

And he left the corridor, to the sound of Gokudera cursing him every step of the way.

* * *

The trip back to the mansion was an uneventful one, and Mukuro gave control of his body back over to Chrome Dukuro during the briefing – he was starting to grow tired of everyone's prattle, and he was not about to subject himself to more torture by sitting through a ridiculously long meeting full of nothing. He did, however, lurk just behind Chrome's consciousness, monitoring the proceeding through her eyes – he did not notice, then, the way Tsuna looked as though he was on the brink of falling apart. It had been eight years since he had taken up the reigns of the Vongola Boss, and yet missions involving the death and destruction of the family's rivals never failed to shake him.

When the meeting ended and Tsuna quietly excused himself, Mukuro brushed his fingers across Chrome's mind, coaxing her to relinquish control and give it over to him. The girl obeyed without question, and Mukuro only smirked at Gokudera's incredulous look when he appeared again in tip-top form. At another time, he might have stayed to torment the Storm Guardian a little more, since it was oh-so-easy to upset him. As it was, Mukuro had more important things to attend to.

He found Tsuna in the bathroom of his chambers, shivering and naked and all alone in a tub far too big for a single person. The young man did not look up at Mukuro's entrance, even though the latter had made sure to make his presence obvious – the only indication that he gave about knowing that he was no longer alone was a slight, almost imperceptible turn of his head. That suited Mukuro just fine; the Mist Guardian stripped himself of his clothes and slipped into the tub, right behind his young boss. He pressed close enough to take the scent of his skin in, and the sight of his battle scars.

"Torturing yourself again, aren't you, Vongola?"

"They didn't have to die."

"I doubt that it matters now."

That closeness was their secret; their affections, strange and beautiful. Mukuro used to rail against it with everything he had, telling himself that he was only interested in seeing the Vongola Family fall and feeling Sawada Tsuyanoshi die in his arms at the end of it, consigning his body over to Mukuro to do as he liked with it. While that particular desire of his had not died, it had certainly tempered itself into another form, one that allowed him to be kind only to this single, fragile, anomaly of a boy.

Mukuro felt Tsuna tremble in his arms, promptly drawing him out of his thoughts. The Mist Guardian draws the boy in, pressing that body against him until he could no longer be certain which one of them was shaking.

"Let yourself be weak. You'll need to pretend again tomorrow."

_Let yourself be weak because I am here._

Mukuro never spoke the words; he did not have to. His embrace was more than enough.


	4. Appealing to emotions that I do not have

**Appealing to emotions I simply do not have.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 20, 2009._

_

* * *

  
_

Because he walks free by moving through other people, because he can see through the eyes of others, Rokudo Mukuro knows that Sawada Tsunayoshi keeps the lamp by his window on at night and stays up about two hours later than he's supposed to, puttering around like he's waiting for something. He knows, as well, that the Vongola takes every opportunity that comes his way to speak to Chrome, his vessel, and inquire, in a stumbling, roundabout sort of way, if she has "heard anything". If she knows what Mukuro has been up to. If he's all right and if there's anything he can do to help.

Chrome, of course, responds accordingly. Ken and Chikusa act as they always have and without Mukuro's instruction, and by doing so, everything comes to pass as it ought to, every single time.

In the dark of his tank he dreams, sometimes, of the first and last time he and Tsuna fought against each other – there had been something striking and almost beautiful, about just how low he had managed to bring the other boy down. The Vongola whelp had been his attempt to study exactly how it looked to rob someone, slowly and totally, of all hope, and for the most part, it had worked. Worked up until the point where Mukuro realized that there really was no killing the hope and sadness in those eyes, no possible means to turn that pleading look into one of absolute hatred.

He could pity this boy, remark upon how pathetic it is, that Tsuna still feels something for a person who had deceived him so totally and threatened the lives of all of his friends without an ounce of regret. What happens, instead, is that there's a bitter taste just underneath Mukuro's tongue that he simply can't shake and it carries over, regardless of the fact that he slips from one body to the next as easily as another sheds clothes.

Mukuro decides that he will ruin this one someday, pull the world out of the boy's grasp and break each and every one of those fingers while he's at it. He will teach him that there are some enemies that exist for the sole purpose of showing self-styled heroes that there's a particular darkness that they can never obliterate, some villains that one will never be able to reform and befriend. He'll make sure that the Vongola will understand the price he has to pay, for his purity, carve it nice and round by blowing a hole through that tiny little chest.


	5. I've waited for you for a long time

**I've waited for you for a long time.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 14, 2009. This fic plays around with the whole ALTOR setup, with a Mukuro who remembers his past lives and is actually the reincarnation of Giotto's Mist Guardian._

_

* * *

  
_

"I knew I'd find you out here."

He lifts the book away from his face just high enough to spot the Boss' shoes trekking across the grass, coming towards him. He drops the book again and shuts his eyes. One breath, and he's blinded by sunlight and the Boss' smile.

"…Give that back, sir."

"You're not reading it anyway."

The Boss has plopped down and set his back against the tree trunk and he has half the mind to tell the man, in all seriousness, that the maidservants will throw a hissy fit if he comes back with grass stains all over the place. Not a headache he wants, mind, as one of the Boss' closest advisors. Sure, the Right Hand was likely going to get stressed out by it the most, but he had his own reasons for not wanting the Boss wandering around, disheveled and dirty.

They don't talk, for a while. They stay in place (him lying flat on his back with his arms pillowed behind his head, the Boss sitting up against the tree with one knee drawn up close to his body) for a long while and they don't talk. The heat of the sun's unforgiving, but the wind's still bitingly cold from last winter, and it carries the faintest scent of olive tree flowers every time it comes around. He watches the skyline, listens to the birds and the collection of small gestures his Boss is making beside him, and wonders, idly, what he's done to deserve all of this grace. To be so fortunate as to have everything, without the expectation of return.

"You're thinking again."

"Eh…?"

"Your forehead's wrinkling up."

All he can see is the Boss' face again, haloed in brilliance and graced with that trademark smile. He takes hold of the Boss' tie and tugs him down, to kiss those lips. A slight spice, mingled with morning coffee and something smooth and clean.

"And you're not thinking at all," he says, before he moves in to kiss the latter again. A moment later, the wind picks up again, but the Boss' body is over his own and he has nothing to worry about.

***

"…Mukuro?"

He notices the eyes, first, before everything else – unsurprising, really, because Sawada Tsunayoshi has the largest, most expressive eyes he's ever seen throughout the years of all the lives he's ever lived. The rest follow: the nakedness of both of their bodies, their limbs tangled together, the softness of the sheets they're under and the sunlight pouring through the windows of the room. Tsuna is flat on his belly on top of him, studying him with a gravity that doesn't quite suit his young features. His hands are reaching out and Mukuro meets them halfway, bringing them to either side of his face.

Warm, pliant and perfectly alive. Not made of the memories of too many lives dead and buried beneath the ages. Not cold, not unforgiving – infinitely kind, invading every pore of his being until there was no room for any part of him to protest.

Mukuro watches those eyes as he kisses those fingers, and smiles when Tsuna's cheeks flare up.

"Good morning, Boss."

He's walked, quite literally, through Hell and right back to get to this point and he realizes, not for the first time, that he'd gladly do it again.


End file.
